The downside of ending your season on a low point is the lingering aftertaste of a poor performance. I won't race my mountain bike again until May, and that's six months away, so I have six months to let the memories of a poor last race rattle around in my head.
I've defined mountain bike racing as my primary goal, and my mountain bike results this year were pretty good. When I look at my season like that I feel like Al Franken's Stuart Smalley character from Saturday Night Live with his empty self-important affirmations like "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like me!"
In previous posts I've mentioned my Powertap and there's no question that it's been a huge asset for me and has helped me improve over the last two seasons. The downside of having it on the road bike is that I get an incomplete picture of my summer fitness because 40-60% of my rides, most of my hard efforts and all of my races are on the mountain bike.
Looking back, I think my ride on September 11, ironically enough, was one of my best of the season. I stormed up the climb to Trapps and felt like I was flying. My plan was to race that weekend, but a mild concussion and a severely bruised nose earlier in the week derailed my plans. If I had made it out to the race I would have had incredible form, but that's still not a guarantee of performance since any number of external factors can keep an athlete from performing up to their potential on a given day.
Here's a look at my power graph for that day. You can see that I set a new record for 10 minute power which was recorded on the ascent of Trapp Hill Road.
When I compare those numbers to my earlier post you can see that my short term power output was way lower in November than it was in September. Considering that 'cross is all about short term power it's really no surprise that my results started to slide as well. This is only a piece of the puzzle, but it's interesting to note the difference in some fitness indicators before two very different performances. The 10 minute power output from that ride is also from the ascent of Trapp Hill Road and it's pretty far from my best.
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